The present invention relates generally to voice mail systems, and more particularly to network based voice mail systems.
Network based voice mail systems offer a number of interesting advantages compared to traditional answering machine devices, for example, better voice quality, better reliability, the possibility of leaving messages without disturbing recipients by ringing their phone, notification (e.g., pager) or alternative message retrieval (e.g., from a personal computer).
Network based voice mail is furthermore a prerequisite for unified messaging, which requires a single point access to voice mail, electronic mail (e-mail) and fax. These advantages are not only interesting for customers but also for service providers who can sell more and provide better services.
Despite these advantages and despite several attempts from the local telephone companies, network based voice mail to date has not had much success with home customers, even if the service was offered free of charge! According to one survey, the primary reason for this, is the inability to screen calls before answering them. Caller ID devices do not compensate for the loss in case of home usage for several reasons. For one, caller ID devices only show who is calling but give no indication of the purpose of the call. Knowing what the caller wants is important to decide whether or not to answer the call. Moreover, caller ID information is not always available and the caller ID display cannot be read from a distance. To view the display, one would have to walk up to the phone--an activity which is bothersome and which may interrupt one's dinner or other leisure activity.
Other reasons for not using network based voice mail are the lack of a message indicator and the increased complexity for retrieving voice mail from a network (e.g., no simple "play" button).
One attempt to solve this problem is a product known as Solo-Point, which can be found on the World Wide Web at www.solopoint.com. This device uses three-way calling to conference in a network based voice mail system with a local device that plays the incoming message to enable a user to screen calls. This enables a user to screen calls with a network based voice mail system. Unfortunately, this product is unable to stay in synchronization with the network based voice mail system, in that it cannot always correctly indicate the number of telephone messages in the network based voice mail system because calls that do not pass through this product are not logged by it. This can occur if the telephone line is busy, or the network based voice mail system is accessed directly by a caller. As a result, messages could exist in the network based voice mail system, while the Solo-Point device indicates there are no messages waiting to be played.
The present invention is therefore directed to the problem of developing a network based voice mail system that enables the user to screen calls, yet accurately indicates the number of messages in the network based telephone system and is as easy to use as conventional telephone answering machines.